Inspired by the fundamentalist remark “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told" is another version of Biblical history. Act One recounts the major episodes of the Old Testament, only with a twist: Instead of Adam and Eve, our lead characters are Adam and Steve, and Jane and Mabel, a lesbian couple with whom they decide to start civilization (procreation proves to be a provocative challenge). As these two gay couples navigate the centuries together as friends, and encounter various different odd characters, we follow them through a crazed historical pageant that brings us down to a present-day NYC.

Paul Rudnick’s "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told" tells the stories of Adam & Steve and Jane & Mabel, original residents of the Garden of Eden in Mr. Rudnick’s gloss on Bible stories. In the first act, we see them navigating through Biblical mythology, up to the birth of Christ. In the second act, these same characters are contemporary New Yorkers celebrating a marriage and birth at Christmastime.

The set pieces designed by Austin Kunis are fairly primitive in execution, and more middle school primitive than fashionably primitive. His props, though, are spiffy, and many of Jay Reynolds’ costumes are absolutely fabulous. Add in Edward Holifield’s wigs and makeup and you have wonderful disguises for the four ensemble members as they morph into different characters. Wigs for the four main characters aren’t as successful, and their first act costumes tend toward the bland (or non-existent for the males for a short segment).

Sound, in Jacob Demlow’s design, nicely covers transitions from segment to segment. Charles Swift’s lighting design lights the wide space adequately for the many individual scenes and has some nice holiday lights in the second act. The creation sequence that starts out the show, though, calls for more spectacular effects.

Ty Autry (Adam), Brian Jordan (Steve), Ellie Styron (Jane), and Jenni McCarthy (Mabel) deftly sketch their characters from the get-go, and that’s perhaps the main problem in this production. Circumstances change, but the characters don’t really grow or change due to them. They respond to them, that’s all. It’s the ensemble characters that really spark the entertainment in this show. Rachel Garbus, Jess McGuire, and Davin Grindstaff all inhabit delightfully wacky personas throughout the play. Alex Burcar isn’t quite so successful in his portrayals, and Nicole Smith doesn’t make a huge impression as the Stage Manager who calls all the sound/light/set changes in the initial creation segment. Still, director Paul Conroy has managed to make the production stronger than the underlying script.

The play has lots of religious discussions, with a search for God underlying most of them. Although the show looks at things from a gay perspective, it is not a godless entertainment. The Holy Book gets treated pretty roughly, with a page torn out and the volume tossed around, and that I consider the most blasphemous element of the show. The play is not making fun of the Judeo-Christian tradition; it’s looking at its concepts and precepts using a gay, comic viewpoint and coming out strongly in favor of the power of love. [POST A COMMENT REGARDING THIS REVIEW]